Blanket the World in Love - Recap

So I posted about the *Blanket the World in Love* event a little over two weeks ago. It was a day to basically bless other people! To make someone smile or to make someone's day by doing something unexpected.



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Since I only found out about it the night before, I didn't have too much time to hash out something brilliant or creative. And sadly, my plan of treating two particular co-workers actually fell apart! Well, I ended up treating another co-worker to a Jamba Juice, but I was disappointed I wasn't able to treat everyone! (There was a battle at the register.) Next time! And I must say, sometimes it is even more fun to bless a stranger. :)

Fun finds about making a more generous, awesome world:

1) I recently found out from this coffee-lovin'-site that there is a coffee shop in South Carolina where people pay it forward and pays for the next person's drink. All the time! :)

 2) This YouTube video, "A Pep Talk from Kid President to You," has gone viral lately. It's pretty cute and my two favorite lines, that I think are quite relevant to this post are:

"I want to be on [the path] that leads to awesome!"

"You've just been pepped talked! Create something that will make the world awesome."

 

 

Did you participate in *Blanket the World in Love* day? Was there a time someone blessed you unexpectedly?
                     

*Blanket the World in Love*

 

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I thought I'd share this since the event is... TOMORROW and I said I would do it! I kinda wish I had more time to think about it (though I actually had an idea -- that involve the words, treating - coworkers - lattes, before I even heard about this!), but here goes in case you want to participate. Then we can participate together! :D

Ellie Fun Day (they "design baby blankets that change the lives of marginalized women in India"!) issued this "challenge" for tomorrow, January 18.

The pitch?

 

"This is the day where LOVE prevails and people are surprised by the simplest act. Can you imagine someone cheering you up in a totally unexpected way? Can you imagine that YOUR simple act of love bringing a smile to someone's face?"

Details here and suggestions by Ellie Fun Day:

"Blanket with a Gift”

• donate a blanket to Project Linus
• pay for someone’s latte behind you
• gift someone in need a bag of groceries
• buy a dozen balloons and hand them out to kids in the park

“Blanket with Words”

• compliment a stranger sincerely
• write a letter of appreciation to someone that had a meaningful impact in your life
• send an encouraging email to someone you haven’t talked to in a year
• tell someone at work/school something they do well
• write words of encouragement with chalk on your neighbors’ driveways/sidewalk

"Blanket with Fun”

• invite a friend to have an indoor picnic
• take a hike, even a short-walk at lunch with a friend
• Go to a matinee with a friend

I've got a busy night tonight with more new-parents meals (lasagna!), but hopefully, in addition to treating coworkers to lattes, I'll be able to find ways (cards?  postcards?  emails?  secret notes?) to "blanket with words"! Which is one of my favorites. :) I'll let you know how it goes.

Got any nifty, creative ideas to *blanket the world in love*? What are some ways you've been blessed by others before?
                           

resolutions

It's only... February 4th... I can still talk about resolutions right? :)

I wasn't really hardcore on setting resolutions this year. But more like... nice goals to have this year. I've already broken a few but it's about having the end goal in mind, right? :]

So here they are:

- having more meatless meals

- more social/fellowship gatherings

- no paper cups - bring reusable cup!

- no sugar in coffee

Meatless meals

- I don't know about you but sometimes it feels like for a meal there's gotta be the starch, the meat, and the veggies. Last year, though not always intentionally, we tried to have 2-3 meatless meals during the week. Sometimes it was because we didn't have time to defrost after coming home from work, and sometimes it was more intentional in not needing meat in our meals.  And in general, we definitely need more green things in our meals.  :]

Social/fellowship gatherings

- To hang out with people more! Being married provides you with constant and instant companionship! And I think it (including dating) makes people lazy to actually go hang out with other people. It's easy to go see a movie just the two of you, but in our community group (aka Bible study), there are single people and I want to make sure there are lots of group activities that everyone can participate in.

No paper cups

- I love my Starbucks but I don't love waste! This is less so jumping on the green, don't waste bandwagon than me actually, finally realizing how much unnecessary waste I help generate! So my goal this year is to either bring my own coffee mug or if I know I'll be staying in the coffee shop, to get it "for here."  I've already broken this rule twice... but I still have 11 more months to make it right! Bringing my own coffee mug doesn't seem like a hard task but I don't like lugging it around when my bag is heavy enough or I don't like toting around a dirty cup, so I will need to put in extra effort for this.  I encourage you if you're going to be sitting in the coffee cup to get your drink of choice in real cup.  :)  You don't even have to do the dishes!

Starbucks with my honey!

No sugar in coffee

- This has been going fantastic. :) I still put cream in, I'm not that hardcore yet. But I feel like it's a small goal accomplished every morning that's a good thing for me. I haven't cut out all sugar but now there's that extra cushion space. :oP

My sugar of choice.  Say no!  (Source)

And of course, a daily, yearly, lifelong resolution... is this:

No, our job as Christians is simply this, I think: to keep company with Jesus. In prayer. In God’s life-giving words. With other Christians. Our assessment of how we’re doing — or not doing — is less important than simply being with Him and letting Him lift the unhealthy yokes we hoist onto our own shoulders.

Where intentionality does come into play, of course, is making space in my life to appropriate that truth. It doesn’t happen magically or automatically. I still have to choose to be with Jesus. Frankly, I struggle with doing that consistently, too. Despite those failures, though, Jesus keeps whispering, “Come. Be with Me. Lay down your burdens. Walk with Me."

Adam R. Holz, "The Unforced Rhythms of Grace"

                         

worthy of the calling

[Warning: Actually thoughtful post.  No pictures.  Just words.  May be too serious for some.  You have been warned.]


This is by no means my first blog.  That was a fun place over at LiveJournal, where to this day, the interface is how I set it to be.  (You can learn from that, Facebook!  Changing things every few months.  It's annoying.  Don't fix what ain't broke.)

Anyway, when Google started taking over the world, I started a blog on Blogger named after a song by Bebo Norman.  I didn't blog too much since those were the awesomely wonder years of college where I was having too much fun in real life to blog.  (Not that I'm not having fun in real life now.  It's different!)  :]  Since all the blogs you own or are a part of show up in your Blogger dashboard, I saw that old blog and browsed through it.  Nothing terribly interesting until I came upon a post I posted on January 3, 2007.  I had just attended Urbana '06, a giant Christian conference aimed at college students that only occurred every three years.

This was the post:

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Many went to Urbana expecting to be told by God what they are to do with their lives.

I received my calling at Urbana '06.

I did not expect thunder and lightning to reveal a moment of revelation.

He did not give it to me.

I had no expectations for Urbana '06.

Yet God exceeded them.

He answered unprayed prayers.

He spoke to me.

He did not tell me what to go to grad school for.

He did not tell me what my career, if I have one, will be like.

He did not tell me who I am going to marry.

He did not tell me whether I will get into grad school.

He did not tell me whether I will get a job.

But He did tell me what my calling is in life, which is to live for Him.

Anything else is really secondary.

"Live a life worthy of the calling." ~ Ephesians 4:1

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As I read that today, I kinda blinked and then smiled cause... WOW.  I went to grad school, I got married, and I have a job.  Hindsight is always, of course, more interesting, and to stand on "the other side" looking back on what I didn't know... all sort of coming to pass since then.  But the greatest reminder which I often forget... is that back then... I "figured out" what my calling is in life -- to live a life worthy of the calling.  Something solid in the fluidity of the unknown.  Is it better to know that and not all the stuff I know now?  Probably.  But I should make something of that --- to know all those uncertainties back then... and to live a life worthy of the calling.  Of course there will be all sorts of other things I don't know now that will make sense later.  :]

Blogs are kind of fun to look back on and go "what was I thinking?!" but also to see how far and how much we've grown.  The things we've learned.  Our experiences.  Those raw in-the-moment emotions we went through.  In a 3 page blog post.  (Oh I know you have those!  :oP)

I'm gonna go think some more about this while I cook dinner.  Maybe.

Do you ever go back on old blog posts?  Or {gasp} those things called journals with the paper where used a pen...?